File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9804, message 62


Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 14:22:51 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Sex education


Hugh,

Thanks for your general agreement, but my disagreements with your
qualifications follow.

>Yoshie writes:
>
>>One might discuss the nature of education--including sex education--that
>>attempts to do away with violence against women. IMO, such a sex education
>>includes, among other things:
>>
>>(1) sex is for mutual + consensual pleasure;
>>(2) sex mostly is not for procreation, though one may choose to have it for
>>the express purpose of becoming pregnant;
>>(3) most women do not come through a penile-vaginal contact alone.  It is
>>important for straight women and men to know what a clitoris is for;
>>(4) human sexuality is fluid and diverse; one's sexual preferences can and
>>do change over time;
>>(5) we may fantasize about things we do not necessarily do or want to do in
>>reality;
>>(6) sexuality and sexual identities are not biological givens--they have
>>been historically generated and products of social relations, discourse,
>>etc.;
>>(7) equation of heterosexuality with normality, naturalness, etc. is
>>oppressive;
>>(8) masturbation is to be encouraged, especially for girls--it's good to
>>know about one's body + mind and what pleases them;
>>(9) safer sex and the use of contraceptives can be eroticized--they are not
>>the 'second best';
>>(10) regarding sex between men and women, it is not a responsibility of
>>women alone to prevent pregnancy; men ought to get condoms, must never
>>complain about condoms 'diminishing sensations,' should consider vasectomy
>>if they do not desire children, etc;
>>(11) sex is not dirty, shameful, etc.; nor is sex the 'truth, nature, etc.'
>>of our identity;
>>(12) practice naming + communicating to others one's needs, desires,
>>fantasies, etc.--this is especailly important for girls but everybody
>>should be able to discuss them without embarassment.
>>
>>There are many other important things, but I do not have the time to list
>>them all. But the point is to educate people into developing their own
>>sexual agency, knowledge of themselves + others + history, learning
>>communication skills, cultivating an aptitude for erotic practices of
>>various kinds, and respecting other people's sexual agency.
>
>This is exhaustive and excellent. I would disagree on two points, the first
>general and the second particular, and I would insist much more on
>historical exemplification of sexual customs with respect to deviations
>from what is now the norm (eg hugely varying forms of marriage and living
>together, and such things as Ancient Greece and homosexuality).
>
>The general point of disagreement is that I would swap points one and two
>and reformulate them, thus:
>
>1) Sex exists because of the evolutionary fact of procreation. It's an
>instinct we can do nothing about. It's a biological necessity we have to
>accept. Children come regardless of our conscious wishes in the matter.
>Human beings are sexual animals.

Your first point is conducive to anti-abortion sentiments + arguments +
ideology. Why encourage them? As long as sex and reproduction are coupled,
there are always folks who want to reduce women to our alleged 'nature,'
'biology,' 'necessity,' even 'social necessity,' etc.

Besides, how do you educate an "instinct"?

>2) That said,  sex works best for individuals and society when it is
>practised for mutual + consensual pleasure, and our society permits this
>more than any previous society because the advances of science and
>production have liberated much of sex from the drudgery of compulsory and
>never-ending reproduction. A good society would increase the knowledge and
>control of our bodies and reproduction to include everybody so that poverty
>and social disadvantage wouldn't condemn some people to bad sex
>(prostitution, std's, battering, unsafe childbirth, etc) while other more
>privileged people  could enjoy sex.

So, much of sex is liberated, but not all sex, I see. So under the
communism you envision, women are forever subjected to compulsory sex
because it's socially necessary. The alleged 'social necessity' dictates
that women accept that 'life is not fair' and that there are limits to our
sexual agency, autonomy, self-determined reproductive control, for 'the
good of society.'

>The particular point of disagreement concerns point 8), which I would
>rephrase as follows:
>
>8) masturbation is to be encouraged for all young people -- it's good to
>know about one's body + mind and what pleases them. This is especially
>important for boys because it is vital to stop repressive and
>self-destructive sexual habits before they take root, and to develop
>positive and liberating habits in their place. Much violence and pain are
>caused in sex by frustrated and self-hating men whose sexual
>apprenticeships imprinted false attitudes to themselves, sexual activities
>and women. These false attitudes engender a vicious circle of
>dissatisfaction and hostility through adult life.

Boys generally masturbate even now; why do they become frustrated and
self-hating? They shouldn't be according to your logic.

>Reasonable discussions on these lines are possible in Swedish schools with
>young teenagers. It's especially interesting in schools with orthodox
>Muslim kids. At my school one of our most successful traditions is a whole
>week (usually two) for the 9th grade (15-16 years) on the theme of sex and
>intimate relationships, including discussions with visitors such as
>midwives, HIV-bearers, gays etc and lots of films, some pretty explicit. In
>their art lessons the kids make pictures or objects or bedroom scenes in
>boxes on subjects like the wedding night, romancing in the sunset, incest,
>rape, young love, being horny etc. The results are displayed in the library
>for the rest of the school to see (the library is carefully watched during
>this period, partly to avoid vandalism, and partly so only selected parents
>get to see what their little darlings have been thinking about and
>depicting). A couple of years ago Hediye and Aysa, two successful and
>ambitious Kurdish girls (Muslims), made the middle page of the local
>municipal paper with a photo of their box on incest, illustrating an
>article about the sex and intimacy weeks.
>
>One of the topics that comes up is whether anal intercourse is dangerous
>(14-year-old Nigerian girl asked this, not during the sex weeks as it
>happened, and she was voicing a general concern). The midwife told me later
>that there's a good reason for the question. The Clintonesque morality of
>our kids and their social setting only counts penile-vaginal penetration as
>"having sex" as in "having sex before marriage" as in losing your
>virginity. So anal intercourse is a handy way of having your cake and
>eating it, so to speak. "Timin' the hymen".

Ah, this is an awful result of limited views on sex engendered by sexism
(saving the hymen for that special someone) and heterosexism (only
penile-vaginal penetration is the 'real thing'). Both distort our thinking
as to what counts as  'real sex' and when/with whom to have it.

So what did the midwife and other educators tell them about anal sex?

Yoshie

P.S. It does look like you read all my posts!




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